What is our primary use case?
My main use case is centralized secret management for application and infrastructure. I use Akeyless Secrets Management to securely store and manage API keys, database credentials, SSH keys, and other sensitive information instead of keeping them in configuration files or code repositories. On an everyday basis, when developers or automated CI/CD pipelines need access to a secret, they retrieve it securely from Akeyless Secrets Management with the appropriate permissions.
What is most valuable?
The first valuable feature is centralized secret management, which gives us a single place to securely store and manage all our sensitive credentials. The second is automatic secret rotation, which has significantly reduced the amount of manual work involved in updating passwords and keys. I also rely heavily on role-based access control because it lets us give different teams access only to the secrets they actually need. Finally, the detailed audit logs are very useful for tracking who accessed which secret and when, which helps with troubleshooting and compliance.
One of the biggest benefits for my team has been having a single centralized place to manage secrets across different environments. Before that, keeping credentials synchronized and secure was more manual and time-consuming. Akeyless Secrets Management has helped us standardize how secrets are managed, improve access control, and reduce the risk of exposing sensitive information.
What needs improvement?
If I had to suggest improvements, I would say the onboarding experience for advanced features could be simpler. Things including configuring complex access policies, dynamic secrets, or integrating with multiple cloud providers can take some time for new users to understand.
The documentation has improved over the years, but some advanced topics and integration examples could still be more detailed, especially for complex enterprise deployments. The initial learning curve can also be steep for teams that are new to secret management. Customer support has generally been responsive, but for more complex technical issues, I would appreciate even faster turnaround times. I would also appreciate more built-in templates and guided workflows for common integrations to make onboarding easier for new users.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Akeyless Secrets Management since 2019, so it has been about seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Akeyless Secrets Management has been very stable in my experience. I have been using it since 2019, and it has been reliable for my day-to-day operations. I have not experienced any major outages or stability issues that affected my production workloads. It has been dependable even as my usage has grown.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability very highly. As my environment expanded with more applications, users, and cloud resources, Akeyless Secrets Management scaled without requiring significant changes to my architecture.
How are customer service and support?
I would say customer support has been very good. Whenever I opened support tickets, the team was responsive and knowledgeable. Most issues were resolved within a reasonable time frame, and for more complex cases, they stayed engaged until I had a solution. The technical team understood the product well and provided practical guidance instead of generic responses.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before adopting Akeyless Secrets Management, I was mainly managing secrets manually using encrypted configuration files, environmental variables, and some native cloud secret storage services. As my infrastructure grew, that approach became harder to manage and maintain consistently across different environments. I switched to Akeyless Secrets Management because I wanted a centralized platform with better access control, automated secret rotation, detailed audit logs, and easier integration with my CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure. Previously, everything was manual, but once Akeyless Secrets Management was introduced, everything became smoother and transitioned to automation.
How was the initial setup?
I was able to connect it with my CI/CD workflows and cloud environments without having to redesign everything. The API and integrations are straightforward, which made adoption much easier for me and also for my team.
What was our ROI?
I have definitely seen a positive return on investment. Before implementing Akeyless Secrets Management, secret rotation and credential management were largely manual, which took a significant amount of engineering time and increased the risk of human error. After adopting Akeyless Secrets Management, I reduced the time spent on routine secrets management tasks by roughly 60 to 70%. For example, tasks that used to take a few hours each week now take less than an hour because of automation and centralized management. I have also avoided security incidents related to hard-coded or expired credentials, which is difficult to quantify financially but has been a major benefit. Overall, I have been able to improve security while allowing my existing team to focus on higher value work instead of routine credential management.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My overall experience with pricing and licensing is that I licensed Akeyless Secrets Management directly through the vendor as part of my enterprise procurement process. I think the pricing and licensing is fair for the value it provides. The initial setup did not require significant infrastructure investment since it is a SaaS-based platform, which helped reduce deployment and maintenance costs. The license model was straightforward, and once everything was in place, the operational overhead was much lower than managing a self-hosted secret management solution. While it is not the least expensive option, the security, reliability, and time-saving aspects make it a worthwhile investment for my organization.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Akeyless Secrets Management, I evaluated a few other solutions, including HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and Azure Key Vault, while comparing features, ease of management, and integration capabilities. HashiCorp Vault was powerful but required more operational effort to manage. AWS Secrets Manager worked well for AWS-only workloads, but I wanted a solution that would be easier to use across multiple environments. I ultimately chose Akeyless Secrets Management because its SaaS-based approach reduced maintenance, offered strong security features, and integrated well with my existing infrastructure while keeping operational overhead low.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into using Akeyless Secrets Management is to spend some time planning your secret management strategies before deployment. Define your access policies, roles, and naming conventions early, as that makes the platform much easier to manage as your environment grows. I would also recommend starting with a pilot project, integrating it with your CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructures, and then expanding gradually.
Akeyless Secrets Management has been very stable in my experience. I have been using it since 2019, and it has been reliable for my day-to-day operations. I have not experienced any major outages or stability issues that affected my production workloads. It has been dependable even as my usage has grown. I would rate this review overall as a 9 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?